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Researchers studied water around two large icebergs in the Weddell Sea off the Antarctic peninsula and found it had significantly higher concentrations of marine organisms than the iceberg-free open ocean.
In a study in the journal Science, they concluded the icebergs carried large amounts of mineral nutrients from the land and deposited them in the sea, which caused a fertilisation effect that boosted the population of key phytoplankton organisms at the bottom of the food chain. The scientists measured higher-than-average concentrations of chlorophyll-containing phytoplankton and krill - a shrimp eaten by whales - fish and seabirds up to 2.3 miles from the icebergs.
The researchers also suggest the increase in the fertility of the oceans around icebergs could be a significant factor in improving the rate at which atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean. This might affect predictions about future climate change given that the southern oceans are known to be an important "sink" for carbon. The carbon absorbed by phytoplankton is consumed by marine animals that die and sink to the bottom of the sea, carrying their carbon-filled bodies with them. "One important consequence of the increased biological productivity is that free-floating icebergs can serve as a route for carbon dioxide drawdown and sequestration of particulate carbon as it sinks into the deep sea," said Ken Smith, an oceanographer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in San Diego, California.
"While the melting of Antarctic ice shelves is contributing to rising sea levels and other climate change dynamics in complex ways, this additional role of removing carbon from the atmosphere may have implications for global climate models that need to be further studied," Dr Smith said.
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http://environment.independent.co.uk/wildlife/article2692494.ece